LinuxCult.org is a new linux forum some of my friends have been working on lately. Its still in the infant stages, but I really encourage any linux users to stop by and check it out. Its going to be great. The board is going to have many great features. One of the cool things already housed there are the helper scripts - written by myself - that attempt to solve several common problems people have with linux. Read more...

As I sit here in the car, it seems as if I have been on this trip for days, although it has sparsely been 34 hours. I'm looking out the window at a hilly green expanse dotted with cows, old farm houses and strip malls. Ahh, the I-5 corridor south of Portland. Quite a contrast to the giant skyscrapers and twitching robots that have been the focus of my attention up to 3 hours previously. Read more...

We all know that its not a question of if we will be replaced by robots, but when. After looking at a few of these machines, the day may be closer than anyone thought. Boston Dynamic's Big Dog From Boston Dynamic's web site: "BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. Read more...

From iRobot, the makers if Roomba the robotic vacuum comes ConnectR - the robot that enables you to "Stay close to those you love – no matter where you are!" According to iRobot's website the robot is a new kind of connection device designed for busy parents and far removed grandparents "seeking greater connection and involvement with kids, grandkids and pets." Technically, the ConnectR is almost identical to it's sibling Roomba, but with some communication gadgets stuck on top. Read more...

Most of you probably have an old computer laying around somewhere. Chances are, its all bundled up sitting sadly in a dusty closet somewhere. Well I strongly believe there is no reason to ever have a comp around not plugged in, and I'm going to share some of my favorite things to do with my old computers with your (or your parent's, or friends') ***Obligatory Linux Plug*** I always install Linux on my old junkers even if I use Windows Vista on my main machine. Read more...

Microsoft Vista's User Account Control is one of the OS's most hated features. Whenever a program runs on Vista that required elevated permissions, or Admistrative user access, UAC pops up a window asking the user, "Do you really want to do this?" This could be one of the main reasons what Vista has been getting such a bad rap, its just damn annoying. But could anyone ever have guessed that MS designed it to be just that - annoying? Read more...

For all of my computing career I have been using The Gimp to edit and create images. Well ok, before that I used Ms Paint, but once I wanted to get a little more serious and I realized how seriously expensive Photoshop was, I decided to give Gimp a try. He worked out well for me over the last 5 or 6 years and I have no complaints. Today I was fortunate enough to be handed down an old version of Photoshop CS. Read more...

I was wandering around on the internet, and decided it would be fun to try and get a really old version of AOL running on my new Vista laptop. Well I never got one of those old version to work, but I did manage install one and all the wav files that came along with it. The one that brings back so many memories, GOTMAIL.WAV, well I had to keep that one. Read more...

Since the Latitude 1720's webcam is only supported by a handful of applications (see the Linux UVC homepage) and none of them are for recording vidoes with sound, I decided to come up with a quick workaround. I wrote a tiny shell script called record.sh which just runs two commands at the same time, ffmpeg and sound-record so that they are synced up. It goes like this: !#/bin/sh ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -s 320x240 -i /dev/video0 -f avi out. Read more...

There are a few last things I wanted to get to work with my laptop, mainly the webcam and microphone. I would go into detail on how I got them to work with Ubuntu but I found this great page : To install Ubuntu-7.04 on Dell Inspiron 1520 Which is for the 1520, but should work for 1720 as well. Good luck everyone.